Philo et Trainspotting

Publié le 6 avril 2010 par lafillequirevaitdunbidondelaitetduneboitedechoco

Voilà, hier, je veux regarder Trainspotting. Je découvre que Mouloud (Canal +) (http://mouloud.blog.canalplus.fr/) anime une petite émission cinéclub (« Le cinéma de tiékar ») juste avant le film. C’est pas mal, c’est intéressant. Connaissant très bien le film (Trainspotting), vu et revu des dizaines de fois, je comprends très bien cette espèce de préface. Ca parle musique (B.O détonante), Ecosse, acteurs, génération X …. Ca me parle, ça me parle même beaucoup, entre autres, parce que ça parle de moi aussi. Je connais : j’ai eu 18 ans en 1999 looooooool ! Trainspotting, c’est un film culte pour une fille de mon âge, moi aussi, jsuis entre rock et techno (Damon Albarn: de Blur à Gorillaz …), moi aussi, on m’a plus parlé de l’anglais/écossais/irlandais … que l’américain, moi aussi, je m’offusque contre le capitalisme/matérialisme/quête du pouvoir et de l’argent (alors qu’aujourd’hui, les « jeunes » ne s’en offusquent plus : dépenser, c’est vivre, c’est comme ça la vie !), moi aussi, jtrouve que, parfois, que la vie, c’est de la m**de mais jlaime aussi tant ! Jpourrais aller loin comme ça. Bref, Trainspotting, c’est une part de moi que je ne renie absolument pas. (Nb : je tiens quand même à préciser aux personnes qui tirent des conclusions un peu trop vite : je ne me suis jamais droguée et je ne le ferais jamais).

Cela dit, ça m’a fait beaucoup réfléchir (la petite chronique/interview/tout ce que vous voulez de Mouloud). Génération X, c’est quoi exactement ? Résultat (absolument pas exhaustif mais intéressant) ci-dessous :

La Génération X désigne, selon la classification de William Strauss et Neil Howe, les Occidentaux nés entre 1959 et 1981. Cette génération est intercalée entre celle des baby-boomers et la génération Y.

Génération X est un terme utilisé dans plusieurs pays pour décrire la génération née dans les années 1960 – 1979. Le terme a d’abord été utilisé en démographie, puis en sociologie et en marketing. Il est aussi beaucoup utilisé dans la culture populaire.

Description

Plusieurs choses caractérisent cette génération. D’abord, elle se situe dans une transition sociale, du déclin de l’impérialisme colonial à la chute du mur de Berlin (qui marqua la fin de la Guerre froide). Située juste après les baby-boomers (environ 1946-1959), cette génération a vécu un creux de vague au niveau professionnel, trouvant difficilement des emplois stables et bien rémunérés. Les formes nouvelles de précarité générationnelle lui sont spécifiques, en particulier dans les pays du sud de l'Europe, comme c'est le cas bien documenté des mileuristas espagnols ^[1] .

Au Québec (Canada), une partie de cette génération a développé une certaine amertume, parfois exprimée sous forme d'agressivité envers les valeurs de la génération précédente par des stations radiophoniques (telles R@dio X) et livres. ^[]Cette génération a tenté de se construire une identité politique, notamment au travers de la dénonciation des clauses orphelin^[] dont elle fut victime.

Ce terme de X est péjoratif. Il a été utilisé pour décrire une génération qui n’a pas su trouver ses repères, contrairement à celle de ses parents qui sortait de la Seconde Guerre mondiale et devait reconstruire le pays.

Origines

La Génération X était, à l’origine, connue sous le nom génération Baby Bust, en raison du faible taux de natalité par comparaison à la période du Baby-boom. Plus tard, le terme Génération X a été adopté et conservé.

Le terme a d’abord été utilisé en Angleterre en 1964 par Jane Deverson (donc nés vers 1950, soit des baby boomers) . L’éditeur de la revue Woman's Own avait demandé à Deverson de réaliser une série d’entrevues avec des adolescents. L’exercice avait montré une génération « qui couche ensemble avant le mariage, qui ne croit pas en Dieu, qui n’aime pas la Reine et qui ne respecte pas ses parents ». Ces résultats avaient été jugés inacceptables pour le magazine parce qu’il s’agissait d’un nouveau phénomène. Pour tenter de sauver sa recherche, Deverson travailla avec un correspondant à Hollywood pour créer un livre sur sa recherche. Hamblett décida de la nommer Génération X.

Nomades

Selon la classification de Strauss et Howe, cette génération est « nomade », ce qui explique leur engouement pour l'agressivité, le goût de l'aventure, le cynisme et la contre-culture qui s'oppose aux boomers.

Culture

Le terme a été d’abord utilisé dans la culture populaire à la fin des années 1970 par le groupe punk rock britannique Generation X. Il fut ensuite utilisé dans le titre d'un roman de Douglas Coupland, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (1991), qui dépeint l’anxiété des gens nés entre 1960-1965, qui n’étaient pas connectés avec la génération précédente. Coupland utilise le X pour référer à l’anonymat d’une génération consciente de son éclatement mais dont les émotions sont obscurcies par les boomers. Coupland avait pris le X du livre Class (1983) de Paul Fussell qui l’utilisait comme Catégorie X, désignant une classe de la hiérarchie de la société américaine. Coupland explique que « Dans son chapitre final, Fussel nomme une catégorie de gens X qui veulent sortir de la roue statut-argent-ascension sociale qui caractérise l'existence moderne. »^[4]

The Cure et d'autres groupes punk et post-punk, rock alternatif et new wave, comme New Order, ont forgé l'ambiance culturelle de l'époque. Le grunge est souvent identifié comme le genre musical caractéristique de cette génération. Le groupe Nirvana est souvent considéré comme le révélateur de ce mouvement.

Inconscient collectif

Celui-ci semble marqué par la Guerre froide et par les innombrables progrès technologiques ayant eu lieu durant cette ère. D'après eux, rien n'est impossible, il suffit qu'on y mette le temps et l'argent.

"13^e Génération"

Dans le livre Generations (1991), William Strauss et Neil Howe nomment cette génération « 13^e génération » parce que c’est la treizième à connaître le drapeau américain. Strauss and Howe définissent cette génération comme celle née entre 1961 et 1981. Ils affirment que cette génération est influencée par :

désaffection dans la gouvernance avec un manque de vérité dans le leadership, particulièrement dans les institutions,
augmentation des divorces,
augmentation du nombre de femmes sur le marché du travail,
mouvement d’arrêt de l’augmentation de la population,
disponibilité de la pilule contraceptive,
“devil-child films",
augmentation de l’éducation divergente,
diminution de l’éducation fondée sur les prêts,
début d’internet,
fin de la Guerre froide.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9n%C3%A9ration_X

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family, choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers.

Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends.

Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life.

I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who need reasons when you’ve got heroin?

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Interview Irvine Welsh

Plus de dix ans après le cultissime Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh revient avec Porno, la suite de la vie cauchemardée des losers d'Edimbourg. Dans la deuxième partie de l'entretien, le romancier nous fait déguster ses Recettes intimes de grands chefs. Y a bon !!

Pouvez-vous nous dire sur vos sentiments, votre état d'esprit à l'époque où vous avez commencé à écrire Porno, cette sequel de Trainspotting ?

Irvine Welsh : Mon état d'esprit était le même que d'habitude. J'étais alors plein de joie, et de désespoir aussi. Notre plus grand défi en tant que société, dans le cadre de la mondialisation, n'aura finalement été que de nous limiter. Et quelles limites peut-on se fixer si l'on décide, le cas échéant, d'en fixer une, dans l'économie de marché et son fonctionnement actuel ?

Par delà la peinture d'une jeunesse foutue, Trainspotting et Porno sont surtout deux critiques virulentes et humoristiques de la façon dont la Grande-Bretagne est gérée. Qu'est-ce qui vous a donné envie d'aborder ces questions ?

Le système de classe est toujours très présent dans tout le Royaume-Uni. Et tant que vous disposez d'une monarchie, et de la maison des Lords ainsi que d'un système scolaire public, ce sera toujours le cas. Le reste d'entre nous s'occupe comme il peut pour passer le temps, donne des coups de pied dans les murs, ou joue les sycophantes, quand il ne tente pas de voler les quelques miettes qui restent sur la table.

De Trainspotting à Porno, les choses semblent évoluer dans le bon sens à Leith, district d'Edimbourg. Les hommes d'affaires ont investi les pavillons de la classe ouvrière, les cols bleus succèdent à ceux qui travaillent dans les usines. Mais, en réalité, les rues semblent plus dures que jamais pour de plus en plus de gens...

Oui. Aujourd'hui, Leith est plein de fric et de beaux appartements se contruisent partout, tout comme des restaurants clinquants. Et pourquoi pas d'ailleurs ? Mais, l'autre face de cette réalité sociale, c'est que la plupart des gens de l'autre côté de Junction Street (un des quartiers déshérités de la ville, NDR) semblent plus pauvres qu'ils ne l'ont jamais été. Il faut se demander pourquoi…

Porno est plus radicalement basé sur les aventures de Sick Boy.
Pourquoi avoir choisi ce personnage pour la suite de Trainspotting ? Pensez-vous que Sick Boy, avec son avidité et son hédonisme sauvage, est un juste reflet de notre ère ?
Oui, cela devait être lui pour Porno, c'est indéniable. Au départ j'ai créé le personnage de Porno sans vraiment réaliser que ce serait lui. Et puis j'ai compris qu'il serait juste absolumment parfait pour ce rôle. Il tient donc le rôle principal dans cette partie.

Maintenant que le temps a passé, que pensez-vous de la génération Trainspotting ?

J'essaie de ne pas y penser en fait. J'ai toujours pensé que la Grande-Bretagne produirait un jour une génération de personnes créatives, des rebelles qui foutraient tout en l'air et qui établiraient des cultures comme le furent le Punk ou la House. C'est une attitude et un héritage de la culture des jeunes que l'on ne trouve nulle part ailleurs dans le monde. Mais aujourd'hui, j'ai bien peur que les débiles, les jeunes loups aux dents longues, les enfonceurs de portes ouvertes et les opportunistes nous aient tous étranglés à mort.

Votre description du porno amateur est très drôle et très réaliste aussi. Avez-vous rencontré des gens dans ce milieu pour écrire ces passages ?
Oui. En fait, j'ai de nombreux amis à Edinburgh qui sont dans le porno amateur. Malheureusement, dès qu'ils sont distribués, se voient offrir une suite de luxe et une seconde caméra, ils deviennent tous d'insupportables prétentieux.

A ce propos, comment expliquez-vous l'interdiction de produire de la pornographie en Grande-Bretagne ?
La Grande-Bretagne a vraiment un problème avec le sexe. C'est un pays ou les petits garçons sont tout de même élevés dans des écoles avec uniquement des personnes du même sexe et sont parfois encore fessés ! Il y a une répression massive à ce sujet dans le pays.

http://livres.fluctuat.net/irvine-welsh/interviews/2204-chronique-irvine-welsh-en-entretien.html

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POUR ALLER PLUS LOIN

What happened to the Trainspotting generation?

The disaffected, heroin-addicted young men immortalised in Irvine Welsh's bestselling novel are now in their 40s. And, it emerged this week, they are dying fast.

Some say that the soundtrack to Danny Boyle's film, together with its humour and attractive lead (Ewan McGregor) gave addiction a gritty, sexy allure.

Among the many quotable passages in Irvine Welsh's first novel, Trainspotting, one stands out: "Choose life," says Mark 'Rent-boy' Renton. "Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning ... Choose life ... But why would I want to do a thing like that?"

He chose heroin instead. There were many like him – and figures released this week by the General Register Office for Scotland bleakly underlined Welsh's satirical point: that what they were really choosing was death. Drug-related fatalities increased by 26% from 2007 to 2008 – there is now up to one every four days in the Lothians. Four in five of the dead are men, and the greatest increase is among men aged 35 and above, long-term heroin users who have come to be called the Trainspotting generation.

Welsh's scabrous novel is set in Leith, Edinburgh, in the mid-1980s, when heroin use there was just taking off. Opiates had been a part of Edinburgh life for centuries: pure opium, the historian Michael Fry has pointed out, arrived in the city in 1693. By 1877 it was widespread among the middle classes (who could afford it). Heroin was first synthesised in 1884, and Edinburgh factories were soon manufacturing it. "By the end of the 19th century," writes Fry, "Edinburgh produced most of the world's opiate drugs, heroin included." Production continues to this day.

In the 1980s things changed drastically, for a number of reasons. There was more supply – a sudden influx of cheap heroin from Pakistan, which was welcomed, says Welsh, by the "big pool of heroin users up here". And supply coincided with unprecedented receptivity. The 70s had ended with massive unemployment, felt particularly keenly in working-class, previously industrial areas, and the 60s' brainwave, peripheral housing schemes which, by the late 70s, writes Aaron Kelly in his monograph on Irvine Welsh, "had already stagnated socially into ghettos". In 1979 a referendum on devolution failed, and Margaret Thatcher was elected.

When Trainspotting was first published, Welsh says, he was roundly chastised for glamorising heroin abuse. It is true that his harsh rhythms, and, when Danny Boyle's film came out, its driving soundtrack, humour, and attractive lead (Ewan McGregor) gave it a gritty, sexy allure. The film was shown out of competition at the Cannes film festival, but became the festival's one unqualified hit. It made more than $30m (£18m) – was so popular, in fact, that for some years afterwards Tim Bell, 63, lay chaplain for the Port of Leith, used to run Trainspotting walking tours in his spare time (The Classic, according to his website, involves visits to "Sick Boy's pub – Leith police station – Welsh's flat – Dockers' Club – Leith Central Station – Central Bar – Fitay the Walk – Kirkgate – Banana Flats – Shore".) Welsh is still irritated by the attacks – "I look now at all the drugs education; they're actually using outtakes from Trainspotting!" – and talking to those who were there at the time it becomes clear that he was only describing what was going on, what he knew, what he still knows, because among the men dying now are boys he met then.

It's true there were those, a few, who took the book and the film too much to heart, and saw glamour where they should have seen despair. "I remember speaking to a community activist in Muirhouse and she was telling me how people had seen Trainspotting as a manual of how to behave," says Gordon Munro, a Leith city councillor.

"It's got this bullshit aura or mystique, a dark underworld feel," says David, who started using heroin in the mid-90s and is now clean. "In reality [heroin addiction] is the furthest thing from that. It's just degradation. Every day is a living hell." It was exacerbated by rave culture – "people were taking heroin to come down from the ecstasy," says Willie, a 42-year-old who began injecting heroin when he was a teenager, in about 1985 (he has been on methadone since Christmas) – but heroin chic was not a concept that seems to have made many inroads. "I don't think that went past London fashion week, to be honest," says Mark, dismissively.

As for the users themselves, they say there was little culture, not a scene as such. "You try and keep away from people," says David. "You just want to be left alone to do heroin. Even if someone overdoses, your first thought is not, 'Oh, are they OK?' Your first thought is to seek out where they got the heroin from – that's how sad it is. Everyone uses everyone, and if you do build relationships it's for a common purpose, to get what you need. It's dog eat dog."

"I don't think it's the kind of drug you take to be happy," says Mikey, a 35-year-old who started using heroin 10 years ago and has tried to kill himself several times. "It's a drug you take to take away pain, to put your life on hold, numb everything. Most of the people I know, that's why they take it. Trainspotting generation? I don't think that's got anything to do with anything."

What it had to do with, mostly, was thousands of young people with nothing to do, and no prospects. "By 1983 you had 3.6 million unemployed," says Welsh. "It tells its own story – you've got a lot of people with a lot of time on their hands. The government was basically creating demand." And they were naive. "You're talking about people who wouldn't normally be involved the heroin scene," Welsh once said. "People didn't have the [Alexander] Trocchi-esque attitude of setting themselves up in opposition to society. It was just people who didn't have a fucking clue." Mark remembers people overdosing on heroin, and friends injecting them with speed to bring them round. "You just can't do that. But they didn't know."

And they were Scottish. A 2008 study in the British Medical Journal of the so-called "Scottish effect" (mortality is 15% higher in Scotland than in England and Wales) found that the excess was mainly accounted for by males aged under 45 – and that at least a third of that was due to problem drug use, usually heroin. This difference – and thus the rate of current deaths – can be ascribed to a peculiarly Scottish cocktail of risks. Firstly there's an underlying issue of self-esteem. "Englishness is the norm," says Welsh. "Scottishness is increasingly seen as a second-class thing. There's always been an idea of two types of Scots – those who went to London and made it big, and the second-raters who stayed home. It's a very negative thing." In Thatcher's Britain "Scots were losers, young people were losers, the unemployed were losers," as Bell puts it.

Then there are specific cultural habits. "The crack cocaine scene you see in the south, the stimulant scene of Birmingham or Manchester, that's not taken off here," says Mark. "Culturally, a lot of people prefer depressing drugs like opiates – heroin, Temazepam. The problem is if you take these drugs in combination and add alcohol that can increase risk factors."

There is also a distinct preference for needles. "It's whisky versus beer," says Welsh. "In Scotland we've always gone for the dangerous hit. In England there's always been a more mellow way – the slow pint of beer in a pub. That's just my own observation." There's more defiance in it – "even the most desperate junkies and alcoholics often have this swaggering bonhomie about them" – and it's more efficient. "I don't want to stereotype," says Welsh, "but it's more cost-effective to inject [heroin] than to burn it in foil, when you're burning it into the air, effectively." "It's simple economics," adds Mark. "You get a bigger, better bang for your buck."

In Scotland, the heroin problem was dealt with as a law-enforcement issue: authorities deliberately made it difficult for users to obtain clean needles, forcing them to share – and thus contributing, directly, to an explosion of Aids cases. "Dundee and Edinburgh were the two main hotspots," says Mark. "A lot of the people I was working with were the same age as me, and 80% of them were HIV positive. There were no antiretrovirals then, so a lot of them were dying."

"I was in prison in the 80s," says Willie. "Lots of people were injecting. Some had the virus and they weren't telling people – they were sharing the needles. That helped kill a lot of people." Drugs policy changed, partly as a result of the Aids crisis, partly, suggests Mark, as a direct result of the success of Trainspotting, and there are now needle-exchanges – but as Mikey points out, it doesn't help that the police tend to use the needle-exchanges as bait. "If you go to get safe equipment you know you'll get busted."

And it has become a way of life. "There are estates," says Welsh, "with three generations who have graduated from alcohol to smack. You could go to any of their mobile phones, and the call-list would be all dealers and junkies.

"In some families you have the alcoholic grandfather, the son who's been an alcoholic and heroin addict and the grandson who's a heroin addict. The generation before that might have been heavy drinkers but in there was work in the shipyards, so they had a reason not to get wasted."

At The Junction, a local health project in Leith, spokeswoman Sam Anderson says that if the younger generation aren't on heroin, they'll be on something else: "The kids we are dealing with now have aunts, uncles, parents who were part of that generation. They are aware of the worst it has done, so they will tend to use different drugs. It is not that all the problems behind that have changed, however. They just choose other ways."

But "over the last 10 years [heroin use] has increased so much it's unbelievable," says Mikey. "Ten years ago it was easy to get cannabis – now you can get heroin just as easily." How easily? "Two minutes." He is particularly exercised by the recent closure of the Links Project in Leith, where addicts were taken in before being referred to rehabilitation units. There is a new programme called Leap, but, Mikey says, they don't take anyone on anything above 30ml of methadone a day; many people he knows are on 130-160ml. "There's nowhere for them to detox now. I know of three or four deaths that wouldn't have happened [if it was still open]." According to Audit Scotland, there are more than 50,000 heroin users in Scotland, and waiting lists of up to two years for treatment.

The answer, says Welsh, is to provide something outside drugs – opportunities, and rehabilitation. But this is not happening. "If you're a working-class kid in the schemes," he says, "what are the alternatives? There aren't many. If you go to a middle-class district in Edinburgh there are cafes and bars, people have money and jobs. You go to a scheme just a few miles down the road from where I am just now, there's nothing there. It's all boarded-up places, maybe a corner shop where you can get milk and rolls, there might a local scheme pub and a bookie – nothing else." He is contemptuous of the Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie's term for the Trainspotting era – a "wasted decade": "It's more than a wasted decade – it's been a wasted 35 years." And neither he nor Mark see it getting better any time soon: according to the Scottish parliament, some 1.2 million people in Scotland live in poor households – 25% of the population. Mark says he read this week's headlines about rising joblessness with a sense of foreboding. "I just see another lost generation – there may be new substances, cheap alcohol and such – but I think we'll see a modern version of the Trainspotting generation."

Meanwhile, that generation is dying 30, 40 years too early. Partly it's the result of long-term addiction. "People who come into these services have very difficult past lives," says Mark. "You've got psychological scars, physical scars in terms of chronic poor health, and a lot of them are living in poverty and deprivation – wrap all that together and it's not exactly rocket science.'"

And partly – again – there is naivety, exacerbated by a twisted social morality. Many of the dying may not even be on heroin anymore. "They will say, proudly, 'I'm clean now,'" says Mark. "What they're saying is 'I'm no longer taking unacceptable drugs. I'm no longer a dirty junkie.'" But a lot of them will have hepatitis C that hasn't been diagnosed or treated – and damages the liver. "They might be drinking half a bottle of vodka a day, and literally drinking themselves to death. It's a comment on how we view drugs in this society. I find it quite sad."

When I called Willie, who lives in Leith, almost the first thing he told me was that there had just been another death that evening just down the street from his flat, and the coroner had arrived. "I heard it was an overdose."

Some names have been changed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/aug/15/scotland-trainspotting-generation-dying-fact